病気にかかる？病気にかかっている？など

Question

I am confused about the "tense" I should use for the verb 罹{かか}る (to suffer from (an illness, etc.)).

Looking at example sentences from weblio.jp, I see various sentences using various forms and am unable to figure out when to use which.

1. Which of the following choice(s) would be appropriate, and what would the meanings be?

長{ちょう}男{なん}を失{うしな}った母{はは}親{おや}として、ガンに（　　）娘{むすめ}の母{はは}の気{き}持{も}ちは共{きょう}感{かん}するにかたくない。

１　罹る

２　罹った

３　罹っている

４　罹っていた

Note: The sentence above was created by me, and likely contains mistakes; please correct any you see!

2. Is 罹る a continual verb like 食{た}べる or a punctual verb like 知{し}る or 打{う}つ?

Answer 1

First of all I think there is (can be) slight misconception about the meaning of 罹る even among natives.

罹る means to become a state of serious illness, or falling in serious sickness (thus the answer for question 2. would be technically 'punctual verb' in this aspect) and it rather focuses on the action than the state of illness compared to its synonymous verb 患う {わずらう}.

患う can be translated fairly well as 'to suffer from sickness'. 患う can connotes more of pain/torment/hardship of being sick than 罹る.

I also recommend you to see also 罹患する

Let's look at the sentence on the above basis.

長男を失った母親として、ガンに（　　）娘の母の気持ちは共感するにかたくない。

In this context, I assume you want to stress the hardship aspect of the daughter who

１　罹る

２　罹った

３　罹っている

４　罹っていた

a cancer.

If so, I'd like to alter 'ガンに罹る' to 'ガンを患う' here.

Also (this is not relating to your question but...) 共感する is technically making sense but is mainly used when sharing positive feelings, so I would like to change it to [汲]{く}む (in the link definition 3)

長男を失った母親として、癌を（　　）娘の母の気持ちは汲むにかたくない。

１　患う

２　患った

３　患っている

４　患っていた

This might be able to convey your intention better.

And the the answer for question

1. Which of the following choice(s) would be appropriate, and what would the meanings be?

would be grammatically all the choices but the context would narrow the choices onto 2 罹った and 3 罹っている provided that we could put the choice of word aside. (sic basis)

the reasons

1 罹る is not really appropriate.

Here, 罹る is present tense thus the daughter doesn't have a cancer yet. The daughter is not suffering yet and she possibly recuperates from cancer. It's a bit unreasonable that the deceased son's mother shares the feeling with the yet healthy daughter's mother.

2 罹った and 罹っている are appropriate.

Daughter must be suffering from cancer, which is compatible with the context.

4 罹っていた can be appropriate

only if the daughter is dead. We cant tell if she's dead or well now from the sentence so I don't think this is good.

Lastly, I'd like to answer the same question on basis of my corrected sentence.

All of the choices would be appropriate, because regardless of the tense of 患う the two mothers have it a common that their children suffer(ed) from cancer.

Answer 2

Example Sentence

I changed the end of your sentence just slightly:

長男を失った母親にとって、ガンに（　　）娘の母の気持ちは想像するにかたくない

想像 is probably better understood than 共感 in this case.

Fill in the Blank

Firstly, I should mention that this 罹る is almost always written with Hiragana. Each form that you listed fits in the blank grammatically, but the meaning will change slightly.

１　ガンに罹る娘の母の気持ち

the feeling of a mother whose daughter may suffer from cancer
the feeling of a mother whose daughter will suffer from cancer
the feeling of a mother whose daughter suffers from cancer

２　ガンに罹った娘の母の気持ち

the feeling of a mother whose daughter has suffered from cancer
the feeling of a mother whose daughter suffered from cancer

３　ガンに罹っている娘の母の気持ち

the feeling of a mother whose daughter is suffering from cancer
the feeling of a mother whose daughter suffers from cancer

４　ガンに罹っていた娘の母の気持ち

the feeling of a mother whose daughter suffered from cancer
the feeling of a mother whose daughter was suffering from cancer
the feeling of a mother whose daughter had been suffering from cancer

I believe that 罹る is a Punctual Verb.